Viggo Mortensen recalls turning down the role of Wolverine in the X-Men movies
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Within the multiverse of superhero franchises, there is an alternate reality where The Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen took the role of Wolverine instead of Hugh Jackman and appeared as Logan across nine X-Men movies. (Eleven if you count the time Wade Wilson wore a paper cutout of Wolverine's face in Deadpool and revamped a scene from X-Men: Origins Wolverine in Deadpool 2.) But in our reality, that didn't happen, and it partly has to do with Mortensen's son, Henry.
Appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Mortensen reflected to host Josh Horowitz about an early meeting with X-Men director Bryan Singer and that time Henry thought the script was "wrong."
"The thing that bothered me at the time was just the commitment of endless movies of that same character over and over. I was nervous about that," Mortensen said. "And also there were some things — I mean, they straightened most of them out, but I did take Henry to the meeting I had with the director as my sort of good luck charm and guide. In the back of my mind, I was thinking he could learn something, too, because I did let Henry read the script and he goes, 'This is wrong. That's not how it is.'"
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images; Everett Collection
Singer apparently asked the child if he was familiar with Wolverine in the Marvel Comics. According to Mortensen, Henry replied, "Yeah, but he doesn't look like this."
"All of a sudden, the director is falling all over himself and then the rest of the meeting was him explaining in detail to Henry why he was taking certain liberties," Mortensen continued. "We walked out of there, and Henry asks if he will change the things he told him about, and I say, 'I don't think so. I'm not going to do it anyway, because I'm not sure I want to be doing this for years. And then, a couple of years later, I'm doing three Lord of the Rings [movies] so who knows."
Mortensen can now be seen on screen in Falling, which he also wrote and directed.
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